Syndicate

CPI (ML) Liberation

April 3, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Liberation, central organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation — March 8 – International Women’s Day – was born in the struggles that women factory workers in their thousands waged against bondage a century ago. Communists began the tradition of observing IWD in memory of those struggles.

Ironically, the powers-that-be and the advertisements all across try to hide the real legacy of Women’s Day and seek to establish a different narrative. They try to tell us that International Women’s Day (IWD) is an occasion when husbands are supposed to buy women washing machines and kitchen gadgets, when boyfriends are supposed to buy them flowers, and governments are supposed to make promises for ‘women empowerment’. So it is important for us to collectively reassert the fighting legacy of the international women’s day and draw lessons for the tasks and challenges at hand. On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2017 let us reiterate some key concerns of the women’s movement.

March 28, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Liberation, central organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation — In a recent trial court judgement on 10 March
2017, 117 workers of the automobile company Maruti Suzuki’s factory in
Manesar, Gurgaon, India were acquitted of a murder charge. 18 workers
were convicted of minor offences while 13 – all leaders of the Maruti
union – have been convicted of murder and await the quantum of
punishment, to be declared on March 17, 2017.

The Maruti workers plan to challenge the convictions of their comrades in higher courts.
Why are automobile workers being jailed for murder? The story at Maruti is a familiar one in India’s industrial scene.

February 10, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Veteran CPIML Liberation leader Comrade Srilata Swaminathan passed away in Udaipur (Rajasthan) in the early morning of February 5. She was 74. Comrade Srilata had suffered a brain stroke on the night of January 28 and was rushed to a hospital in Udaipur where she breathed her last breath following a cardiac arrest.

June 17, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Liberation -- India worships mothers; political leaders are fond of equating the nation with Mother, and politics and popular culture both make a huge deal of ‘respect for mothers’. But in spite of this hyper-visible, in-your-face celebration of motherhood, there seems to be a deliberate obscuring of the labour of mothering and care work that women perform. ‘Put her on a pedestal and forget her’ seems to be the approach of Governments. Worship of mothers and slogans of ‘Bharat Mata’ and praise for mothers’ supposed capacity for ‘sacrifice’ and ‘silent suffering’ help us to reinforce the myth that motherhood is a responsibility that women must bear cheerfully and single-handedly, expecting nothing from the State, from employers, from society.

And yet, if we would bother to listen to the voices of real live women, we would find it difficult to keep celebrating domestic drudgery as happy self-sacrificing motherhood.

September 24, 2014 -- Kafila.org, submitted to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal by the author -- One of the slogans churned out of the womb of turbulent Paris in the
May days of 1968 was "Don’t trust anyone over 30". The student uprising
of May ‘68 with its audacity and exaggeration might have failed. But the
mahamichhil (grand rally) called by students which took command over
the heart and pulse of Kolkata on September 20 was a literal, vivid,
living embodiment of this slogan.

August 21, 2014 -- Outlook, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission -- We revolutionaries, who seek to transform society, spend a lot of
time re-imagining the world we live in. That does not mean we live in a
fool’s paradise. It means that we dream dreams that can be achieved.

We
don’t wish on a star. Our wishes, we know, won’t be granted by any
gods. The beauty of our dreams lies in the fact that they’re made up of
human imagination and human will, and can be shaped and brought to life
by human will.

When our imaginations are cramped, our realities
too are likely to be the same. When an idea comes to life in our
imagination, it is the first step towards bringing it to life in our
real world.

The other thing about our dreams is that we aren’t
solitary dreamers. We don’t dream our dreams isolated from others. Our
dreams are not a private indulgence or a private solace. These dreams
are born in the collective minds of fellow fighters. We dream together,
as we fight struggles together. And when others are able to see and
share our dreams, the dreams acquire a life beyond our own personal
lives.

July 14, 2014 -- Socialist Alliance, posted at Links international Journal of Socialist Renewal -- In the past week, Israeli military forces have escalated their
offensive on the Gaza Strip. Israeli warplanes have increasingly
targeted houses, civilian-populated areas and civilian facilities in the
Gaza strip. Israeli warplanes have destroyed a number of houses while
their residents were inside, without any prior warnings, killing and
wounding many Palestinian civilians.

The Israeli government has cynically exploited the killing of three
Israeli youth and used this to whip up a racist hysteria against
Palestinians and the Hamas government in Gaza. It has done this without
producing any evidence about who was responsible for those killings. A
campaign of indiscriminate violence against Palestinians has been
incited and one Palestinian boy has been tortured and burnt to death.
Now even more indiscriminate retribution has been inflicted on the
civilian residents of Gaza. Collective punishment is a violation of
international humanitarian law.

June 23, 2014 -- Green Left TV/Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Indian revolutionary socialist and feminist Kavita Krishnan presented this talk to participants of the Socialist Alliance's 10th National conference, held in Sydney June 7, 2014. Kavita Krishnan is secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association (AIPWA), a leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation and editor of the magazine, Liberation.

Venezuelan workers of the state-owned oil company PDVSA denounce US sanctions against their firm.

End United States’ interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela!

No sanctions against Venezuelan citizens!

June 17, 2014 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- We, the undersigned parties and organisations in the Asia region, condemn the moves by the United States government to impose sanctions on Venezuelan citizens it deems to have “abused human rights”.

The US House of Representatives’ May 28m 2014, vote for such sanctions is a violation of the right of all nations to sovereignty and self-determination.

The bill is not motivated by a desire to end supposed human rights abuses in Venezuela. Rather, it seeks to support the openly stated aims of Venezuela's right-wing opposition to overthrow the democratically elected government of President Nicolas Maduro. This is revealed by the bill's authorisation of millions of dollars of increased funding to opposition organisations in Venezuela – the same groups responsible for a wave of violence within Venezuela this year that has left at least 40 dead and hundreds injured.

May 21, 2014 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/Green Left Weekly -- Kavita Krishnan has become a well-known international
spokesperson for the movement against sexual violence in India that
grew after an horrific gang rape of a
student in Delhi in 2012. She is also a national leader of the
Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, which won more
than a million votes but failed to win any seats in the general election in
India, which the right-wing Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP), led by Narendra Modi, won by a landslide.

Krishnan will soon
embark on a speaking tour of Australia. Details of her public
meetings around Australia can be found here.
She will also be one of several international guest speakers at the
Socialist Alliance 10th national conference in Sydney,
June 7-9 where she will present a keynote speech on “Capitalism,
Misogyny and Sexual Violence”. You can find out more about this
conference, and how to register, here.

May 8, 2014 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Kavita Krishnan
is a central leader of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist-Leninist) and editor of Liberation, the party's
central publication. A former leader of the All India Students
Association (AISA), Krishnan is joint secretary of the All India
Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), which is active among
women workers and agricultural labourers, and has led struggles for
the dignity and rights of Dalit women, and against state repression.
The AISA and AIPWA played a significant role in the struggle against
sexual violence that followed an internationally publicised gang rape
of a student in Delhi and Krishnan has become a well-known
international spokesperson for the movement.

Krishnan will be
on of the international guest speakers at the 10th
national conference of the Socialist Alliance to be held in Sydney,
June 7-9. She will also be doing a speaking tour of Brisbane,
Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Geelong, Adelaide and Perth.

Mila
Gisbert, a conference organiser, interviewed Krishnan in the
midst of campaigning for India's April 7-May 12, 2014, general election. The CPI-ML
is fielding in 83 constituencies spread over 15 states and three
union states.

March 5 marked one year since the death of Venezuela's president and revolutionary Hugo Chavez. An outspoken fighter for the oppressed in Venezuela and Latin America, the loss of Chavez is still felt keenly by socialists and anti-imperialists globally.

But the Bolivarian revolution that Chavez led is a mass movement of millions of people that lives on in the barrios and workplaces in Venezuela. This process, led by the government of President Nicolas Maduro, is facing fresh attacks by right-wing forces backed by the United States.

The recent violent protests by a minority that has repeatedly been defeated at the ballot box has caused widespread destruction and terror. Along with at least 20 deaths and hundreds of injuries, public buildings and government-run, pro-poor social missions have been attacked by opposition protesters, at the estimated cost of up to 10 million bolivars.

The international media has presented this fascist violence as a peaceful democracy struggle that has been repressed by a dictatorial Maduro government. This turns reality on its head.

Kafila -- First published May 23, 2013, posted at the Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission. The brutal gang rape of a woman in December 2012 triggered a mass movement against violence against women in India. The perpetrators were sentenced on September 13, 2013 -- Sexual violence cannot be attributed
simply to some men behaving in "anti-social" or "inhuman" ways: it has
everything to do with the way society is structured: i.e., the way in
which our society organises production and accordingly structures social
relationships. Once we understand this, we can also recognise that
society can be structured differently, in ways that do not
require – or benefit from – the subordination of women or of any section
of society.

May 4, 2013 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Politicians often describe India as “the
world’s biggest democracy”. When I attended the 9th congress of the
Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) Liberation (CPI-ML) on April 2-7, 2013, I found that
the reality was somewhat different.

[Below are statements issued by socialist and progressive organisations in the Asia-Pacific region. More will be posted as they come to hand.]

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Statement of the Socialist Alliance (Australia)

March 6, 2013 -- The Socialist Alliance in Australia expresses its deepest sympathies
with the people and government of Venezuela on the death of Companero
Hugo Chavez Frias on March 5. His passing is a huge loss for all
peoples, across Latin America and the globe, struggling for a world free
of inequality, exploitation and oppression.

It is testament to Hugo Chavez’s great leadership that, while mourning
his death, we are also confident that the Bolivarian Revolution and the
new movement for socialism of the 21st century that Chavez inspired will
be continued by the mass of people, to whom he worked so hard to give
power.